More than 600 Afghans packed into a US military C-17 aircraft at Kabul Airport

I joined India Ahead News on Tuesday in a panel discussion of the present and future of Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover of power.

The other panellists are Sher Jan Ahmadzai of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska, Cambridge University researcher Marwash Arif, and Lisa Curtis of the Center for New American Security. The host is Neha Khanna.

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So much of the intervention in Afghanistan was premised on an American lead that when you had this American withdrawal, it left a vacuum there. The result is that many people in the international community are trying to pick up the pieces.

But at the highest levels, there is no longer any international coordination of basic assistance, let alone development programs, health care, education. The international community has been sidelined because individual countries will make their decisions regarding the Taliban.